Students working in EDF should in general be competent at using the following tools.
Highly recommended:  https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

* Linux
 * The bash shell, including simple scripting
 * An editor (vim or emacs preferred, others OK if you really know how to use them)
 * Files, directories, devices
 * find, grep, sort, head, tail...
 * pipelines "|" and redirection "<" and ">" (and "|&", ">&" too!)

* Basic programming
 * An editor (above)
 * make
 * C++
  * Building a project from multiple source files
  * Creating and maintaining a Makefile
  * gprof (profiler) and gdb (debugger)
 * Creating and maintaining function libraries